Estimating the characteristics of vegetation canopies with airborne radar measurements

Abstract

Possible use of synthetic aperture radars (SAR) for monitoring agricultural canopies is investigated in this paper. Data have been acquired on the Orgcval watershed during the AGRISCATT'88 campaign. Four radar experiments were carried out with the airborne scattcrometer ERASME (C and X bands, HH and VV polarizations, multi-incidence angles). Simultaneous ground measurements (soil moisture, leaf area index, water content of the canopy) were conducted on 11 wheat fields. Backscattering coefficients of the canopies arc interpreted in the framework of semi-empirical ‘water-cloud’ models. A simple paramctrization of the angular effect of soil roughness is introduced, allowing the simultaneous use of multi-incidence angle radar data. With a unique set of parameters for each radar configuration ‘ frequency and polarization’ the water-cloud model appears to describe adequately the backscattering of all the fields, over the range of incidence angles. It is shown that in this case, attenuation is the dominant effect of the vegetation and an inversion algorithm is proposed for estimating the water content of vegetation. This algorithm requires measurements at two different incidence angles and various combinations of radar configurations are then tested.